


Once You Go Pack, You Never Go Back

by thilesluna



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, M/M, NO WOLF LEFT BEHIND, ONCE YOU'RE PACK YOU'RE PACK FOREVER, Pack Family, Pack Feels, also if you can't tell everyone is aliiiiiive, erica has nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:58:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thilesluna/pseuds/thilesluna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erica has dreams. Dreams about before; before she met Derek, before the bite, before her newfound "werewolfetude" as Stiles would say. It's always the same dream though, the day her seizure was taped and she went from invisible to everyone talking about her in the worst way possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once You Go Pack, You Never Go Back

Erica has dreams. Dreams about before; before she met Derek, before the bite, before her newfound "werewolfetude" as Stiles would say. It's always the same dream though, the day her seizure was taped and she went from invisible to everyone talking about her in the worst way possible. The school claimed tracing the video was impossible but everyone knew exactly who did it because Jake Richards bragged about it for over a week, the worst moment of her life earning him his 15 minutes of fame at BHS.

She wakes up from the dreams sweating and shaking, her claws itching under her skin and her teeth elongated. She's sure her eyes flash in the dark of her bedroom. It keeps her up the rest of the night.

It only becomes a problem when she starts seeing Boyd and they start spending nights together in Derek's loft and she wakes up crying, her breath catching in her throat. But Boyd, being who he is, says nothing; just gathers her to his chest until her heartbeat slows and her hands loosen from the fabric of his t-shirt.

Sometimes he doesn't wake and she's able to climb carefully from the bed and shuffle to the kitchen for a class of water, her legs shaking.

It's a Tuesday when she meets Derek at the fridge. He doesn't say anything either, just reaches over her head to grab two glasses from the cabinet, fills them with water and hands one to her. They both move to sit on the couch and Erica hesitates for a second but Derek flops down and throws his arm over the back in invitation. He's gotten better about touching after the almost losing everything to the Alpha pack, laying casual touches on their shoulders and necks if he feels upset or they do.

When she pauses another second, he raises an eyebrow and she huffs out a laugh. She slides under his arm and against his side, and feels him relax at the contact. She thinks about how Stiles told them about the importance of touch among  _wolves_  and how his voice got loud and serious when he talked about how wolves who have been alone for a long time--"Like perhaps if their pack is killed or lost or, I don't know,  _abandons_  them," he said pointedly--crave touch more.

Erica thinks she has more in common with Derek than she originally considered.

She gets away without talking about it until one night she get interrupted in the kitchen by Stiles--which thank God the whole Derek and Stiles finally happened; Boyd had started suggesting they place bets but Scott shot down the idea because, "No. Ew. He's my best friend and I don't even want to think about him having sex with Derek even for the sake of a bet. Gross. Why."--who wanders in scratching at his stomach and yawning.

"Erica?"

She rolls her eyes and growls. "Who else would it be?"

"Whoa there, Catwoman. Put the metaphorical claws away. It's like 3 AM," he grunts, pulling open the fridge. "Also the literal ones if they're out."

She runs a claw over the back of her neck when she makes her way to the living room and grins when he squawks indignantly. She settles on the couch, her cup of water clutched in her hand. Stiles meanders in and folds himself into the arm chair closest to her. They sit quietly just long enough for him to start fidgeting and picking at the threads of the armrest.

"Can't sleep?" he says, when the silence stretches too long for his taste. She shrugs, but of course, Stiles being Stiles refuses to accept that and shut the fuck up. "Me either. Derek's like a furnace. Is Boyd hot too?"

"I'm hitting that so obviously," she deadpans. It takes Stiles a second and then he's grinning at her.

"No I know Boyd's hot, I mean those pecs am I right?" he laughs. She does her best to smile back but she's had the dream 4 nights this week and she's so,  _so_  tired. Stiles studies her, calculating like he does when there's a problem in front of him he has to solve and it makes her palms itchy. "You okay, Erica?"

"Fine."

"You know, popular culture as taught me a lot," he responds, which, what the  _fuck_ , Stiles. "I know all about penguin mating habits and how to tell if pasta is done--which ask my dad about the time I watched the Food Network when I was 10 and he came home to a box of pasta on our wall and my mom in stitches."

Erica's exhausted. "What is your point Stiles." They've learned that it's best to just ask because he never just gets to it. He'd go on for the next ten minutes if she let him.

"Something else pop culture has taught me is that when someone--and not being sexist here but--especially women, say that they're 'fine', really the opposite is true."

Damnit.

"So you can either tell me what's up, or I can force Derek to make you all have sharing hour next pack meeting."

"Derek wouldn't--"

"I think you are underestimating the power of my sexual abilities. I can make him do pretty much anything."

" _Gross_."

"You love it," he says, and damnit if she doesn't. She loves bickering with him, long over her debilitating crush that ruined her life through much of her adolescence. Sometimes her dreams aren't just the day of her seizure. Sometimes they go on and she realizes that the bite was taken from her somehow and she's not a werewolf and that her pack, her  _friends_ , won't even look at her anymore. Those are the ones that make her wake up crying because to go back to that--that would be worse torture than anything Gerard or the Alphas did to her.

She doesn't say this to Stiles though. She shrugs and says, "Bad dreams."

Stiles nods. "I had nightmares for weeks after Gerard." Erica thinks the pack forgets sometimes, that Stiles got the shit kicked out of him in a basement for no reason other than to piss off Scott--and even though he probably didn't realize at the time, Derek. She and Boyd remember though. She remembers the smell of the burn on his hand when he tried to undo their bonds. She remembers the sound Gerard's fist made hitting his face and the way Stiles whimpered and asked him to "please, stop--I don't--just stop.  _Please_." It was almost worse than the electricity in her bones.

Almost.

"It's about before I got turned," she hears herself saying. She didn't mean to tell him, but it's Stiles. He's the one she trusts most besides Boyd.

"Before?"

Erica smiles sadly. "Weird right? I mean, I know you weren't popular or anything, but I was like, the school  _freak_."

"Erica--"

"I was, Stiles. Don't try to say I wasn't," she says fiercely. "Don't pity me and say that I wasn't laughed at and made fun of behind my back because of something I couldn't control. I was a freak and the video--"

"I never thought you were a freak," Stiles says quietly.

She juts out her chin and glares at him. It's all she can do to keep from crying all over again. "Well you were the only one."

He doesn't say anything for a couple minutes, they both sit and drink silently. "Sometimes," Stiles says as he stares out the loft window, "I dream about the night my mom died. I was alone in the room with her," he continues slowly. Erica gapes at him. "My dad was--he didn't make it in time, so I was there by myself." She can smell his sadness and his guilt over something that wasn't even his fault. "I didn't know what to do. I felt so helpless," he says, his voice small.

The silence stretches. "I feel that way sometimes now too," he goes on. "With all the werewolves and stuff? It's feels like it's suffocating me, I think that's when I have the dreams. Things get bad and worse and I feel like I'm drowning but none of it is anything like it was that night at the hospital."

Erica stares down at her glass. "I dream about the day Jake taped me," she spits bitterly. "I can even see exactly what happened because I watched the damn video over and over. I couldn't stop watching it." She looks over at Stiles who just stares back. "And then...you guys won't look at me because I lost the wolf. No one talks to me. I'm so fucking alone. What if that happens, Stiles? What if I go back to being the freak?"

He sets his mug on the coffee table she made Derek buy and pushes himself up so he can move to the couch and pull her into his arms. He holds her for a moment before speaking. "Even if you go back, even if somehow you lose the wolf and you're a regular old human, not a single one of us is going to abandon you. Pack looks out for each other, right? They take care of their own? That's what Derek's been telling us at pack nights. You're stuck with us. No dumping the Hale-McCall pack that easy. Believe me, I've tried.” He kisses her forehead lightly and she wonders when the hell he grew up so much. “Besides, where would Batman be with Catwoman?”

He hugs her tightly when she starts to cry, holds her until Boyd and Derek both surface from their respective rooms—Boyd, the hallway and Derek the top of the staircase. The tears have mostly stopped by the time Boyd gathers her to him and carries her back to their room bridal style. She looks over his shoulder and sees the way Derek stares at Stiles, who flushes bright red, like he’s never seen him before but also like he wants to rip off all his clothes. She wants to laugh but she’s so tired, so she falls asleep to the steady beat of Boyd’s heart instead.

**Author's Note:**

> I miss Erica a lot, a lot. And Boyd. NO ONE IS DEAD LEAVE ME ALONE.


End file.
